


one hell of a loaded phrase

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Embedded Images, Gen, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Reader-Interactive, sorta - Freeform, to be explained eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-05-30 11:18:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15095621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: ====> ????????: Wake up.Your name is-Wait a second. What the hell is going on? One second, you were watching John reach for the handle of the door into the new universe, and now you’re here. Where even is here, anyway?also known as 'fuck you, you're fae now.'





	1. the start of something strange

====> ????????: Wake up.

Your name is-

Wait a second. What the hell is going on? One second, you were watching John reach for the handle of the door into the new universe, and now you’re here. Where even is here, anyway?

You’re sitting on the floor of a dark, damp cave, covered in moss and- flowers (???), and you don’t really feel like _you_ anymore. You do a once-over, just to make sure you’ve still got all your limbs, and- wow, what the fuck?

The reason why you don’t feel like yourself anymore is because, well, you aren’t. A glance at your reflection in one of the puddles on the cave floor confirms it even further. You’re not only an entirely different person physically, but you aren’t even human. You’ve said it once, you’ll say it again. _What the fuck?_

You’re still pale and (sorta) blonde, yeah, but your skin is tan and freckled, and your hair is a _lot_ longer and full of flowers. You’ve got fangs, claws, folded-over ears, and decently-sized horns. If you cut yourself, you’re pretty sure you’d bleed bronze. You’re also shorter, more petite, and more feminine. _Much_ more feminine. You’ve got a baby face, wider hips, and- you’re pretty sure these are boobs. To add to that, you’re wearing a dress. The universe must absolutely hate you.

You’ve still got your sylladex, thank fuck, but the contents appear to have been modified. You’ve got two pieces of strange, alien technology that you’re pretty sure correspond to a laptop and a smartphone (?), a leather cord with a couple of charms bearing Sburb symbols on it (??), a handful of rocks (???), and, thank whatever benevolent deity is responsible, your sword and your shades.

Your modus won’t let you access your shades, for whatever reason, and the alien tech you’ve been given is out of battery. As far as contacting anyone to ask what the fuck is happening, you’re shit outta luck.

====> ????????: Explore.

You’re still not exactly comfortable with the strange, alien wilderness outside of your comfy little cave, so instead, you check out the writing- well, etching- on the wall.

 

Whatever language this is, it’s completely foreign to you, but somehow you can still read it. It’s a shrine to some sort of goddess, one that somehow bears all the symbols on the charms in your sylladex. You have a really bad feeling about this. Beneath all the symbolism and purple prose is etched a single phase.

_“Hail the Princess Deakkani, patron goddess of the self and the soul. May her grace bless the broken, the lonely, and the abandoned.”_

You have a _really_ bad feeling about this. As you read the inscription, it elicits a familiar sensation- the same one you felt the first few times you read the words _Prince of Heart_ etched into the walls of LOTAK’s tombs. Fuck.

When you’d previously considered your fate after the end of the game, the thought of being reincarnated- as a fucking magical flower princess, nonetheless, had never crossed your mind. It’s like you’re trapped in some sort of strangely comforting fever dream with absolutely no way out, and you can feel the panic building like bile in your throat. You glance back over at the etchings, and- yeah, fuck, you need to get out of this cave.

Your panicked fumbling leads you to fall straight through the curtain of vines separating your little hidy-hole from the rest of your strange new world. And holy hell, is it strange. Everything- you mean _everything_ is covered in green, interrupted only by the flowers littered everywhere. This place is fucking teeming with life. The chirping of birds echoes through the little clearing you’re in, accented by the buzz of insects and the scampering of something larger and furrier. You’re pretty sure there’s a lizard in your hair.

There’s a serene calmness to this place, a gentle, fuzzy happiness that comes with just being here, and it’s freaking you the fuck out. You’re a man of technology, of metal and wiring and electricity, and this place seems innately magical.

Magic.

Hmmm.

The charms in your sylladex might have something to do with that.

But for right now, you’ve got an objective. You know what you’ve gotta do- you’ve gotta fix this, find your friends and bring everything back to normal, ASA-fucking-P.

But how?

 

//command options:

{ ====> Deakkani: Magic your way out of this mess. }

{ ====> Deakkani: Search for your asshole friends. }

{ ====> Deakkani: Do some research. }

{ ====> ???????: Wake up. }

//


	2. a pervasive inevitability, pt. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit. Is this a fucking manual on wherever- and whenever, and whatever you are? You really hit the jackpot with this.

====> Deakkani: Do some research.

Research about what, exactly? It’s not like there’s anything in the immediate vicinity that you could possibly read, and even if you found something, it probably wouldn’t be very useful. You’re better off searching for your co-players. There’s a good chance that they’ll have information that you don’t.

You set off, following the faint sound of running water, and just like that, you trip over an old, moss-encrusted book.

 

_Item Obtained_

_Surviving in the Feywilds; A Hero’s Guide_

Okay, maybe you were wrong.

It looks like it’s older than you are, the leather of the binding scratched and faded, the pages yellowed and warped. The stones set in the front cover, however, although spotted with moss, are completely intact and glowing faintly with whatever magical energy pervades this place. You can’t help but notice that they bear a strange resemblance to both the ones in your sylladex and some Sburb-related iconography.

Hmm.

 You flip through the book, but all the pages are fuzzy and blank until you finally settle on one. _‘Arrival in Fae domain,’_ the caption reads. You flip to the next page, and it’s the same thing. It’s enchanted, but the information seems too valuable to pass up.

_“Very rarely, heroes of Sburb find themselves in the Feywilds after successful completion of one or multiple interconnected sessions. A session(s) must meet the following prerequisites:_

_-At least 50% of players must be female or feminine-leaning non-binary_

_-At least 50% of players must be Derse dreamers_

_-Session(s) must involve more than one (1) pre-established (non-construct) species._

_-Session(s) must involve at least one (1) player of each of the following aspects; Light, Void, Doom, Life. All of these players must be Derse dreamers_

_“If all of the following criteria are met, end-game algorithms have a .05% chance of spawning all Derse dreamers involved in the session(s) into a post-game domain known as the Feywilds. This includes dreamers deceased, double deceased, incarnate as sprites, or otherwise not present during the end-game. Prospit dreamers are spawned in a separate domain following normal end-game procedures._

_“Players entering the Feywilds are immediately adapted physically to their surroundings. Read more on characteristics of Fae on page (--). The Feywilds also adapt to them, incorporating them into pre-existing mythology. Read more on Fae mythology on page (--). Players spawn not only in normal post-game fashion, but within 3 square kilometers of each other, and with a random assortment of Fae and Sburb artifacts in their sylladices._

_“Additionally, in accordance with standard exit guidelines, the Feywilds are inhabited by a small, close knit population of Fae. Depending on the respawn conditions experienced by the Prospit dreamers of these sessions, the ancestors and/or guardians of the Derse dreamers entering the Feywilds may appear there as well, before, during, or after the players’ ejection from the game. Otherwise, the domain is populated exclusively by non-sentient flora and fauna. Read more on flora on page (--) and more on fauna on page (--)._

_“In order to facilitate their survival, players entering the Feywilds spawn with the ability to manipulate the innate energy of the domain in a manner concordant with their class, aspect, and lunar sway. For non-player Fae, this ability is not omnipresent, and must be learned and practiced to obtain proficiencies natural to players. They are often wary of players who demonstrate extensive manipulative abilities and can become hostile._

_“This anthology appears naturally near the spawn points of players, ancestors, and guardians at the time of their spawn. Any copies can only be handled by those belonging to these three groups. They present only information that is essential to the individual and are intended to be used only in times of duress. If you’ve awoken in the Feywilds and are now reading this passage, be studious. This section of the book can only be seen once and disappears the moment the cover is closed. Good luck!”_

Holy shit. Is this a fucking manual on wherever- and whenever, and whatever you are? You really hit the jackpot with this.

You continue to consider the fact that hey, you know what the fuck’s going on now, as well as the fact that a seemingly infinite resource just landed smack dab in your lap. You absolutely don’t consider, through the power of sheer will, the fact that this means you might never see Jake or Jane again, or that Dave’s bro might be back. Nope. Nuh uh, not thinking about it. Not even gonna think about thinking about it.

====> Deakkani: Consider the other painful realities of your current existence.

Instead of thinking about how you may never see two of your friends again, or how your abusive pre-scratch self might be back for good, you think about how utterly uncomfortable you are right now.

You’re perched on the flattest rock you could find, and you’ve just come to the realization that you’re exposed, out in the open, and wearing a dress. Not only could almost anyone come upon you, in a dress, but you haven’t got any other clothing options. To make matters worse, it’s only knee-length, and there’s a slit up one side that comes to mid-thigh. You’re fucking doomed.

Additionally, wherever you’ve been dropped is remarkably hot and humid. You’re painfully aware of not only exactly where your dress stops, but the scratchy weight of your braid on the back of your neck and all the way down your spine. You shift uncomfortably, and- _holy fuck your thighs are stuck together._

In a futile attempt to calm yourself down, you try taking some deep breaths. You press your palm to your chest like you usually do to steady your breathing, and-

You calmly, quietly execute a graceful fucking pirouette off the handle. You can’t fucking stand this.

And, just like that, our view of your nervous breakdown is obscured by a flashing, grey CHARACTER SELECT SCREEN.

//command options:

{====> ????????(1): Wake up.}

{====> ????????(2): Wake up.}

{====> ????????(3): Wake up.}

{====> ????????(?): [command unavailable].}

//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also known as 'in which the author continues to abuse the desecrated corpse of homestuck canon, now with more choices'


	3. finally, a new character

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You’re so goddamn done. You’re so fucking done that grandma needs to come take you outta the oven already, ‘cause pretty soon that crispy golden brown’s gonna be burnt black, smoking up the kitchen with the smell of charred ass, setting off the smoke detector, makin’ all the ancient assholes in the nursing home have heart attacks.

====> ????????: Wake up.

Sburb is over.

It’s done, gone, never to be seen again. The new universe has been created, and you’ve been dropped smack dab in the middle of it- in some lush green forest with flowers fuckin’ everywhere. There’s something about this place; the nature, the fresh air, not being cooped up on that goddamn hunk of rock, hurtling towards a death that didn’t happen, and it’s making you giddy. You feel like a fat kid in a candy shop right now.

You’re free, you’ve escaped, and you’ve got free reign of a whole brand-new world. _Your_ brand-new world. You stand up, stretch your legs ‘cause you feel like it’s ripe time for some exploring, and- wait, _what the fuck-_

Instead of your usual god tier pj pants, you’re wearing a skirt. Why the shit are you wearing a _skirt?_

You’ve got a really bad feeling about this. A really, _really_ bad feeling about this. Like, a ‘just realized your shirt’s inside out an hour and a half into a first date’, ‘stuck on a long-ass flight and the Taco Bell you had for lunch isn’t sitting so well’, ‘tipsy driver that just ran over someone’s cat,’ sorta feeling.

Sburb made your fucked-up life even more fucked up than it already was, wrung you out and hung you up to dry. Against all the odds, you succeeded, you escaped, you made it out alive. Why wouldn’t it give you a parting ‘gift’, a final ‘fuck you’?

You guess that’s just how it is. Having a whole ass new universe and still being yourself, intact and whole was too much to ask for. Of course it was. You should’ve been expecting this, really.

_Sigh._

Dejectedly, you root through your scraped-out sylladex until you come across one of your old polaroid cameras. It looks like the alien tech you’ve got instead of your laptop and phone are dead, and, well, you’d like to see if you still look anything like yourself.

And the answer is a loud, resounding ‘no, you look nothing like yourself’. Figures.

Not only are you not even yourself anymore, you’re not even human. You’ve got horns, fangs, claws, the works, and when you scratch yourself, you bleed rust instead of red. You’re a girl, too, a girl with long hair and soft features and- is this fucking _makeup?_

You’re so goddamn done. You’re so fucking done that grandma needs to come take you outta the oven already, ‘cause pretty soon that crispy golden brown’s gonna be burnt black, smoking up the kitchen with the smell of charred ass, setting off the smoke detector, makin’ all the ancient assholes in the nursing home have heart attacks.

Yeah, okay, you don’t know where that was supposed to go either. You’re kinda sorta really fucking shaken up right now.

====> ????????: Get lost.

Can’t be lost if you had no idea where you were in the first place, dude.

Right now, you’re just sorta wandering aimlessly, staring at the ground in front of you. You need to talk to someone. Karkat, Terezi, John, Jade, hell, you’d even be fine talking to Dirk or Rose, but you can’t. All your tech’s been swapped out with futuristic alien shit, and you’d have no idea how to turn it on, if it even had battery, so you’re stuck wandering, alone with your thoughts and whatever’s in your sylladex.

A quick run-through, and yeah, you’ve got more game shit than you do your shit. There’s some sort of necklace with a bunch of Sburb-symbol charms, whatever’s replaced your phone and your laptop, your polaroid, a pair of normal shades, and your sword.

====> ????????: Find something weird.

As you wander, you stumble upon a ruin (????). It’s man-made (or troll-made or whatever-the-hell-species-you-are-now-made), but it looks like no one’s been here in a long time.

The etching on the pedestal in the center is some bizarre, foreign language made primarily of straight lines (?). You can read it, thanks to the Gift of Gab, but you sure as hell can’t understand it. Yeah, you can pick out the individual words, but this shit looks like poetry written by 12-year-old Rose. There’s only one sorta normal phrase, inscribed at the very bottom on each side.

_“Hail the Princess Demeonya, patron goddess of memories and the passing of time. May her grace bless the forgotten, the forgetful, and the short-lived.”_

That sounds an awful lot like your classpect. Is this who you’re supposed to be?

You scrape some of the moss off the side, and you’re greeted by a slime green spirograph and a purple moon. Hmmm. You do the same on the adjacent side and find a red, 10-pronged gear and a darker red broken- no, scratched- record.

Welp.

That leaves one question- Is this a Sburb construct, meant to immortalize your godhood, a shrine (to you) built forever ago by whoever lived here, or a little bit of both? If it’s either of the latter, then there’re already people (or trolls, or consorts, or caripacians, or weird fairy-people) living here, and they already revere you as a god.

That’s either very good or _very_ bad, and you don’t think you want to find out just yet.

And just like that, our beloved CHARACTER SELECT SCREEN is back.

You, the reader, eagerly select our KICKASS MAIN CHARACTER, only to be greeted by a flashing red X. Aww, man, it looks like Deakkani isn’t available right now.

 //command options:

{====> ????????(1): Wake up.}

{====> ????????(2): Wake up.}

{====> ????????(?): Wake up.}

{====> ????????(?): [command unavailable].}

//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more choices??


	4. even more new characters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It appears that fortune has smiled upon you and gifted you a compendium of resources on the domain you’ve arrived in, which means one thing: you’re going to read as much as the enchantments on this thing will let you.

====> ????????: Wake up.

This is it, the new universe.

You’re lying on solid earth, staring up at an unfamiliar expanse of night sky through a cover of tree branches. There’s a cool, twilight breeze blowing by, bringing with it the soft smell of flowers after rain. It’s wonderful, just a hair short of breathtaking, and something is very, _very wrong._

There’s magic here, a lot more than there should be. You can feel a vast, unharnessed potential flowing unbidden through every inch of this place like wind in a hurricane. All twelve aspects ebb and flow around you, inside your grasp, inside your soul.

Endless potential surrounds you, and you’ve got absolutely no idea what to do with it. You search your soul for the guidance of Light, but instead of the golden strings of fate drawing the pathway to fortune, a single, unrecognizable force says _forward._

So you stand, dust yourself off, and marvel at the strangeness of this place. You’ve been changed, altered to fit a mold, and it’s bizarre. Your skin and hair are pale violet, your teeth fangs, your fingertips claws. You’ve got horns, tall and pointed, and ears folded over like a troll’s. Around you, the lush flora glows with the innate energy present here, in the colors of the aspects and the hemospectrum.

In front of you, a long-forgotten path twists into the forest, lined with royal violet and the yellow of your aspect. Enchanted stones, discarded and abandoned, mark a trail that’s been overcome with flora. There’s an occasional candle, half-decomposed, and traces of enchanted flame. As the sun creeps below the horizon and the twilight becomes night, the forest around your path glows brighter. Finally, the path opens into a clearing and- whoa.

This is completely _bizarre._

You’ve come across an ancient shrine devoted to a god(s) that shares your caste and aspect, and it feels like it’s drawing you towards it. Wary of ancient enchantments, you climb the stone stairs and step onto the main platform. The cenotaph in the center is etched with a sort of strange poetry proclaiming faith to a single goddess whose name isn’t mentioned until the very last line.

_“Hail the Princess Rozarria, patron goddess of fortune and fate. May her grace bless the capricious, the unlucky, and the suffering.”_

Hmmm.

These are Sburb symbols, and that does sound a lot like your name and your classpect. Could this shrine potentially be devoted to you, or an ancient portrayal of you?

Time to message your friends and see what they’ve encountered. Hopefully, the chorus of ‘what the fuck is going on,’ ‘where the fuck are we,’ has died down, and instead they’ll have documented their findings. You open your sylladex and find two foreign devices, a smartphone and a tablet (you think) in place of your usual gear. Both are completely devoid of battery.

You won’t be able to message your co-patriots any time soon, but you’ve found more interesting things in your sylladex; a set of charms bearing Sburb symbols that appear to assist in harnessing whatever magical energy pervades this place, your needles, still powerful as ever, an old headband of yours, and an enchanted book.

You decide that the book’s the way to go. It reads “ _Surviving in the Feywilds; A Hero’s Guide,”_ on the front cover, and has twelve colored stones bearing the same properties as the charms you’ve been given, one for each aspect, set in the front cover. When you flip from page to page, it only offers you one section to read; “ _Arrival in Fae domain.”_

It appears that fortune has smiled upon you and gifted you a compendium of resources on the domain you’ve arrived in, which means one thing: you’re going to read as much as the enchantments on this thing will let you.

Meanwhile, why don’t we visit someone else?

====> ????????: Wake up.

You’re already awake, but you’re just kinda chillin’ for right now.

You’ve been reincarnated, as a kick-ass pastel pink fairy goddess, no less, in a crazy cool, brand-new universe full of magic. Hell, there’s even a shrine to you, a sweet little gazebo-thingy proclaiming, “ _Hail the Princess Rokshiri, patron goddess of achieving something from nothing. May her grace bless the lost, the empty, and those facing insurmountable odds.”_

And that’s all awesome, but it’s a lot to take in, y’know?

You’re also kinda lost as shit and really missing your friends and it’s the middle of the night right now, so you’re just lying on the fluffy fuckin’ grass, staring up at a sky that hasn’t been ruined by hundreds of years of light pollution.

You’re pretty sure there are some kick-ass constellations in there, but you’re not really in a place right now to map them out. You’re not really in a place right now to do anything, actually.

Maybe we could visit someone else?

And just like that, the CHARACTER SELECT SCREEN reappears, but it’s different. Since we’ve unveiled our four MAIN CHARACTERS, it’s scrolled down some to reveal the next two.

Who the hell are these people?

//command options:

{====> ????????(1): [command unavailable].}

{====> ????????(2): Wake up.}

{====> Let’s check on Deakkani again.}

{====> Let’s check on Demeonya again.}

//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a) there are four constellations in the second photo. can you find them? i couldn't after i'd put all the other stars in
> 
> b) ooh, two unrecognizable characters. here are some hints;  
> -neither are trolls  
> -neither are OCs  
> if that doesn't help, the songs that i associate most with these two are  
> -bishu feat. sophie rose; eyes wide open for (1)  
> -desmeon; hellcat for (2)


	5. overpowered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You decide that that’s not something you want to think about right now.

====> ????????: [command unavailable]

When the Game ends, you immediately regret having Dirk toss you into his sprite. The end processes tear your code to pieces, rip away the sprite components, shred you to bits in drawn-out bursts of agony. You can’t scream, but you try, and try, until finally, everything goes dark.

And then you suddenly become aware of an abnormal amount of cold, wet sensory input.

What the _fuck_??

You’re still somehow corporeal. You can hear, you can feel, you probably could see but you aren’t exactly up for opening your eyes just yet. And yet, you aren’t yourself anymore. You aren’t sure of what _yourself_ even means.

====> ????????: Who are you?

Hmm. You’ll have to think about that.

You aren’t ARquius, because the -quius part is missing from your mind. You aren’t AR. AR is an extension of Dirk, and you sure as hell aren’t part of that asshole anymore. You aren’t the Auto-Responder, because it was barely even sentient in the first place. Are you Hal?

Yeah, you’re Hal.

Now, onto the next conundrum. Sburb is over- you’re very sure on that front. And yet, you’re still somehow alive, not to mention corporeal. How the _fuck_ did that happen?

You broach the possibilities and- fuck. You’ve lost all your external processing power, all of the knowledge you’d compounded on Sburb, and all of your sprite wisdom. Gone, missing, AWOL.

You decide that that’s not something you want to think about right now.

Instead, you decide to test the limits of your newfound corporeality. Arms, check. Legs, check. Gross motor control, check. Senses, (mostly) check. Here goes nothing.

====> ????????: Open your eyes.

You can’t see jack shit. You focus, try harder, and- trees?

You’re lying on the ground, staring up at a canopy of foliage. As soon as you get the hang of the whole vision thing, you get a clear picture. You’re in a forest full of flowers, somewhere strange that’s neither the Incisisphere or Earth.

You shakily stretch, then try the limits of this body. Sitting up is okay, as long as you don’t think about it too much but standing is harder. A lot harder. You do manage to stumble to a boulder to sit on, but that’s the extent of it.

From your new vantage point, you get a much better look at where and who you are. You’re in a very, very dense forest, surrounded on three sides by an egregious amount of flora. On your fourth, there’s some sort of shrine carved into a rock wall, words in a language that you don’t recognize, but can read (??).

As for who you are, well, you’re excited. Sure, you probably should be upset that the body you’re in is a) the wrong gender and b) not human, but that’s overshadowed by the fact that you’re _god tier._ You’re dressed in the blue-green robes of a fully realized Mage of Mind- definitely the best classpect you could’ve ended up as.  You can feel your aspect in the depths of your brain, whispering tidbits of information about you and your surroundings, and it’s making you almost giddy.

Here’s what you know so far.

-This is, at least for the Derse dreamers, the new universe. It’s called the Feywilds, or the Feywilderness.

-You, one other sprite from your interconnected sessions, and all the eligible players are here, and you’ve all been reincarnated not only as fae, but as goddesses in fae mythology. (Fae are all female, hence the gender change.)

-The shrine you woke up next to is a shrine for _you. “Hail the Princess Haxillia, patron goddess of knowledge and inference. May her grace bless the ignorant, the mistaken, and the uninformed,”_ it reads.

-The Feywilderness (-wilds may be technically correct, but you prefer -wilderness) is a plane of innate magical energy, and as a goddess, you’re able to harness it. You’ve got not only your god tier powers, but your sylladex came equipped with a set of class, aspect, and lunar sway charms meant to act as fraymotifs and a handful of cantrip stones that allow you to use minor abilities native to other aspects and hemocastes.

====> Cantrip stones?

Yeah.

You’ve got seven; a Life stone (minor healing spell), a Blood stone (thaumaturgy, basically), a Light stone (minor luck boost), a bronze stone (temporary understanding of nearby wildlife), a teal stone (temporary blind-sight), an indigo stone (minor strength boost), and a violet stone (temporary underwater respiration).

There’s a Sburb player’s guide to the Feywilderness that spawns sometimes that’s got all twelve aspect stones embedded in the front cover, and you’re pretty sure the ‘caste stones appear randomly.

====> Those sound kind of over-powered.

Yeah, but they have their drawbacks.

You need to not only know a) what they are and b) how to use them, but have a genuine reason to do so, or else they won’t work. Depending on the situation, they might even backfire and have the opposite effect.

====> _You_ sound kind of over-powered.

Mentally? Yeah. You’re not only almost omnipotent, but you’ve been blessed with psionics by virtue of your caste.

Physically? You can’t really walk or stand without falling flat on your face within thirty seconds/two steps, you’ve got the fine motor skills of a below-average toddler, and you’ve resorted to propping yourself up against the rock wall so you don’t collapse outright.

It balances out.

====> Mmkay. How about we check on Deakkani again?

You’re doing better. Much better, in fact.

You may have been dropped ass-first into a reprehensibly shitty situation, but that doesn’t mean you can’t handle it. Hell, if everything goes right, you might even fix it.

First things first, you’re going to-

There’s something here. Something big enough to snap a handful of branches in a row. Something that’s probably very dangerous.

“Dirk? Dude, is that you?”

//command options:

{====> Deakkani and Demeonya: Family reunion!}

{====> Rozarria: Explore.}

{====> Haxillia: Explore?}

{====> ????????: Wake up.}

//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh wow, more worldbuilding!  
> if only there were some decent character interaction.


	6. a pervasive inevitability, pt.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit.  
> “Dave?”

====> Deakkani and Demeonya: Family reunion!

Holy shit.

“Dave?”

“yeah, dude, it’s me. one hell of a new paint job, huh?”

Holy _fuck._

Before you can stop yourself, you’re flashing forward and into a hug. Not exactly the most masculine of actions, but he’s your _bro._ He’s real, he’s here, and he knows exactly how badly the end of Sburb fucked you over, because it happened to him too.

He laughs. “we’re totally fucked, aren’t we? i mean, look at this. finally in the new universe, but sburb couldn’t let us go without one last ‘fuck you’.”

You find yourself echoing him, laughing resignedly at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. “One hell of a parting gift, isn’t it? It’s almost like they gave some little kids crayons and let ‘em design our endgame.”

“nah, bro,” he says. “little kids ain’t got shit on this. this was a bunch ‘a junkies whacked out on, like, every drug possible, listening to dubstep. then they gave all the ideas to a bunch of schizophrenics ‘n doped ‘em up on acid ‘n let ‘em draw their hearts out.”

“Maybe,” you say. “Maybe they made a bunch of bots watch ten-thousand hours of the shittiest anime they could find, then had ‘em work together to build a premise.”

“or like, a random word generator built by a bunch of neckbeards,” he says. “guaranteed to put together tons ‘a fucked up fantasies, and they let the coked out schizophrenics pick n’ choose.”

For the first time in a while, you find yourself smiling. “Man, Dave, I missed you.” It’s the truth. You’re not sure how you made it through your initial panic _and_ six-ish hours by yourself, alone with your thoughts.

“missed you too, bro,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like his heart’s in it. “you mind if i ask, like, a really personal question?”

Your stomach drops. Fuck. You fucked up. You brought feelings into this and made him uncomfortable and shit fuck _fuck-_

You force yourself to breathe and respond as nonchalantly as you can. “Yeah, dude, what’s up?”

“did you, like, cut your hair?” he asks.

You almost sigh with relief. He’s not mad at you, you didn’t make it weird. “Yeah, I did. Want me to do yours?”

“that’d be sweet,” he says. “but we’re like, magical fuckin’ fairy princesses now, and it’s like-“

You scoff. “Dave, we’re already the literal worst princesses in existence. I don’t think it’d matter.”

“uh, dude,” he starts. “you, you might wanna-“

Whatever he’s saying, you don’t register, simply because _there’s something touching the back of your neck._ Whatever it is twitches slightly, and without hesitating, you throw your arm back and grab-

Fuck. _Fuck._ This is bullshit. This is absolute goddamn horseshit. The universe absolutely _loathes_ you.

Apparently, your fancy-ass, dumb as shit magical fae healing capabilities extend to your fucking hair, even when you cut it yourself.

“This is horseshit,” you complain to Dave, releasing your panicked grasp on your own hair. “Seriously. Healing is awesome, yeah, but the fact that it extends to my fucking hair, _when I cut it myself,_ is so fucking redundant-“

“dude,” Dave says, clearly taken aback by something. “you’ve gotta lotta hair. you could make wigs for like, six whole bald orphans n’ it wouldn’t even make a dent.”

At this point, your hair’s pretty much regrown entirely, and it easily reaches your lower back. You really could make a few decent wigs without losing much.

“Such horseshit,” you say.

“hold up,” Dave says, and before you can ask what he’s doing, you’re stopped by a flash and the click of a camera shutter.

“Why?”

“kickass photo op, bro,” he says. “we’re, like, celebrities here, remember?”

The polaroid develops, and he passes it over to you. It’s a good picture, ruined only by the fact that you’re in it. Unbelievably, you still look like a shitty render of an off-brand magical girl.

“Nice photo, but it’s kinda off-putting,” you say. “I look like a b-list rip-off of Sailor Moon.”

“you and me both, dude,” Dave says. “like, i look like an off-brand tooth fairy, but i’m s’posed to be some sorta powerful goddess.”

“You too? I woke up next to a fucking shrine that’s meant to be for me. “Hail the god-princess Deakkani, patron of the self and the soul,” etc. etc.”

“aw man,” Dave says. “i got “Demeonya, patron goddess of memories and passing time,” and a bunch a’ like, 12-year-old Rose level poetry.”

“Yeah,” you say. “I’m supposed to be an all-powerful ruling goddess, but I sure as hell don’t feel like it. Right now, it’s less ‘savior of the beaten and the broken’ and more ‘lost, confused teenage boy stuck in someone else’s body’.”

“that’s a big fuckin’ mood,” he says. “man, speaking of bodies, why the fuck am i so hot?”

“Because it’s hot as shit out here, duh,” you say. “Seriously. I may be stuck in a dress but thank fuck it’s not those asshole Prince stockings.”

“lucky,” he says. “i got stuck with this stupid long skirt ‘n tights, ‘n my legs are suffering.”

“I’d tell you to keep the skirt but get rid of the tights,” you say. “But that’d put you at risk of the special brand of hell I’ve encountered today.”

“what, adequate ventilation?” he asks. “must be so hard to be comfortable, like man-“

“Dave,” you interrupt. “The insides of my thighs are, quite literally, stuck together.”

He stops rambling, raises an eyebrow, and when you nod, bursts into raucous laughter.

“bro,” he says, laughter subsiding. “that was, like, the apex of comedic timing right there, dude. fuckin’ glorious, got bitches swooning everywhere, what every little kid wants to be someday.”

“It’s all about the delivery,” you say. “The weirder shit you say, the more you sound like a serious fuckin’ adult, the better it gets.”

“prove it,” he says.

And prove it, you do. In your best angry teacher voice, you start, “I’m here to kick gum and chew ass,” then a pause, for dramatic effect, “and I’m all out of ass.”

And he just fucking loses it. It makes your heart melt, in a way, the guy you looked up to for pretty much your entire life, crying laughing ‘cause you told a shitty joke in a deadpan voice. In your mind, Dave was a stone-faced idol, the model for all your ironic idiosyncrasies, someone you’d always look up to. You think you like this version of Dave, the one rambling on about what’d it take for an actual teacher to say ‘ass’, a lot better.

Maybe this whole thing isn’t as bad as it seems.

And just like that, we’re back to our scrolled-down CHARACTER SELECT SCREEN, which presents us with FOUR WHOLE AVAILABLE OPTIONS.

//command options:

{====> Rozarria: Explore.}

{====> Haxillia: Explore?}

{====> Rokshiri: Stargaze.}

{====> ????????: Wake up.}

//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is so self-indulgent i swear to jesus. i just want them to have happy, healthy sibling bonding time and not be antisocial losers.


	7. archaic constructs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You’re already half-covered in itchy, slimy, gross bits of plant, and you absolutely do not want to make it worse. Jasprose, bless her heart, is gracious enough to help you up and onto a nearby boulder.

{====> ????????: Wake up.}

You stir, stretch a little, and-

Yes. Hell yes. Hell fucking _yes._

Despite all your doubts and inconsistencies, you’ve made it to the new universe, hearty and whole and _god tier,_ for fuck’s sake. Hell, you’re even standing in front of a shrine devoted to _you,_ praising and exalting you as _Jasprose, patron goddess of bonds broken and sustained._ This is fucking _sweet._

When you find alpha Rose again, you are _so_ going to rub this in her face.

You shuffle through your sylladex, eager to get ahold of your alpha-timeline, not-half-cat self. Merry fucking Christmas to you, ‘cause there’s a shit ton of stuff in here. A fancy leather-bound book, a handful of rocks, some neat magical charms, a stuffed toy mouse, and (Hell yeah!!) some sweet-ass Sburb tech.

You flip open your brand-new, tricked-out laptop, and- awww, shit, it’s dead. So’s your PDA. It looks like you’re gonna have to actually find her first.

Oh well. Time for some good, old-fashioned aimless wandering.

====> Jasprose: Get lost.

You’re not lost!! You’re just sorta confused. You kinda took off excitedly, and now you’ve got no idea where you are or how you got here.

Okay, you might be lost. But it’s not a big deal. This plane’s filled with a shit-crazy amount of magic, and you can feel an incredibly bright spot up ahead. Whoever that is ‘ll probably be able to help you.

====> Haxillia: Try the whole ‘walking’ thing again.

Something big is about to happen, you can sense it.

You can’t tell exactly what it is just yet, but you feel like you need to be ready, both physically and mentally.

So, as much as you don’t want to, you slide off your rock and onto your feet. Balancing is weird, but you feel like you’re getting the hang of it. You’re standing, albiet shakily, and you don’t feel like you’re about to keel over.

====> Jasprose: Reach the ‘bright spot’.

You dash (what? you’re excited) into the clearing in front of you, and-

Oh.

Oh no.

Haxillia: Fall over.

You’re already on the fucking ground, dipshit.

Someone, likely another escapee from the game, just crashed into the clearing that you’re in and startled you. You promptly flinched and toppled over into the slimy, wet grass. What a way to make an introduction!

To try and salvage some of your dying dignity, you offer an explanation.

“Sorry about that,” you say, and although you’re already cringing at yourself, you continue. “I’m not the most familiar with this whole ‘corporeality’ thing, and motor skills are a bitch.”

God, that was humiliating. You hadn’t thought to try talking before this, and it turns out your voice is _awful._ You’ve got a goddamn _lisp,_ for fuck’s sake.

“Hal?” a familiar voice asks.

Oh, thank god. Thank Jesus too, and all his little baby angels. It’s just Jasprose, who already knows how much of a disaster you are.

“Yeah,” you say. “I think- I might need a little help.”

You’re already half-covered in itchy, slimy, gross bits of plant, and you absolutely do _not_ want to make it worse. Jasprose, bless her heart, is gracious enough to help you up and onto a nearby boulder.

“Thanks,” you say.

“Do mind if I ask what the fuck is going on?” she says. “Also, you’re covered in grass.”

“I know,” you say, then “basically, the exit algorithms of Sburb decided to fuck us over by turning us- you and I and all of the other Derse dreamers, troll, human, living, and deceased- by turning us into literal fairy princesses. Emphasis on literal.”

“Princes and princesses, or-“

“Just princesses. Fae are primarily, if not entirely female, and now, so are we.”

“So, uh, should I be using a different pronoun, or what? Rose used to be a Nazi about that kinda stuff, and I figured better safe than sorry.”

“Gender is an archaic construct that I, as a borderline omniscient deity, have transcended the need for,” you say, desperately trying to hide the fact that you don’t fucking know. “Anything is fine. I’d use the one you’re most comfortable with.”

“Man,” she says. “This is weird. Cool as shit, don’t get me wrong, but weird.”

====> Why don’t we let these two catch up a little, maybe sort things out?

====> Meanwhile, let’s see how our other characters are doing.

Hmm.

What next?

//command options:

{====> Rozarria and Rokshiri: Explore.}

{====> Haxillia and Jasprose: Explore?}

{====> Deakkani and Demeonya: Wander.}

{====> Deakkani and Demeonya: Stargaze.}

//


	8. family reunion, pt.1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “i still wanna know where the roof went,” he says.

{====> Rozarria and Rokshiri: Explore.}

You’re walking carefully across the forest floor, your daughter-mom’s- _Roxy’s_ \- hand in yours. After your second joyful reunion, the two of you agreed that you should move on from her shrine, because as much as you enjoyed stargazing with her, whispering happy secrets into each other’s hair, you’re fairly sure you don’t have all the time in the world. When the angry clamor of fate in the depths of your mind became too much to ignore, you gently nudged her down the highlighted path of fortune.

The highlighted path of fortune is, ironically, an actual path, much like the one that led you from your shrine to hers. You’ve got a feeling these shrines- although they clearly haven’t been visited in years- were once popular enough that the paths between them haven’t yet been overtaken by the surrounding flora. You’re not sure to where- or to whom- this particular path leads you, but you aren’t complaining. It’s rather visually appealing, especially as the forest glows at night.

Roxy seems absolutely enamored by your surroundings. Whether it’s the excitement of having arrived in your final, hard-wrought destination, or the fact that she’s never seen flowers- nature, more like- before in person, she gazes at everything you pass with the wide-eyed wonder of a child. She makes noise- small, unconscious vocalizations under her breath- too, every time she encounters something novel, like a big, shiny beetle perched on a tree branch, or a bird’s nest containing a handful of eggs.

She sees it before you do- a single, out of place flower. While most of the flora blanketing her shrine was deep navy, indicative of her aspect, minus the occasional spot of yellow you brought along, this one is fuchsia.

“look, rosie-,” she gasps, pointing at it. “i think dirk’s here too.”

She’s right, and the guiding force of Light agrees with her, as she takes off down the path with a renewed energy, yanking you along with her grasp on your hand. While she previously plodded along at the pace you set, more interested in the surroundings than the destination, now she hurries, almost running.

“Roxy-“ you gasp, as she tugs you along.

She turns to you, eyes practically sparkling with amazement and joy. “we’re gonna have a family reunion. shit’s gonna be totes wild- my god, you n’ dirk ‘ll love each other- ‘n i wanna give davey the biggest mom hug ever!!“

You truly, honestly wish you could approach the prospect of family with that much sheer enthusiasm, but, alas, you can’t find it within yourself. Still, her happiness seems to fuel your own.

You burst into the clearing outside of- what you assume to be- Dirk’s shrine not a minute later. There, two tall, noticeably feminine Fae stand, clad in Dave and Dirk’s respective god tier garb, with a few modifications.

Roxy squeals, almost immediately, and tackles Dirk’s lookalike in a hug. Dave’s lookalike just stands there, startled by your sudden arrival, grimacing in- embarrassment?  

“i take it you aren’t exactly enamored by the new paint job,” she- he?- says, in an odd mirror of your brother’s voice. “yeah, me neither. one hell of a shitty reward, huh? like, yeah, we fought our way through hell ‘n back, n’ we got this kickass new universe for it, but whoops! there’s some sorta mistake n’ i ended up as a badly done remake of the fuckin’ tooth fairy, complete with pink hair n’ amy adams’ titties. swear to jesus rose, this shit is so not cool, it’s settin’ world heat records. outta the way, death valley, it’s my fuckin’ time to shine.”

You take that back, there’s no way in Hell this isn’t your brother.

“I’m glad you managed to hold onto your glimmering wit, Dave,” you say. “Otherwise, who will entertain us with egregious metaphors and badly timed innuendos? Certainly not Dirk, I hope.”

“missed you too, lalonde,” he says.

“Of course,” you say. “Now, while I’d love to sit and chat forever, there do seem to be some looming deadlines. I’d rather let Roxy get her ‘biggest mom hug ever’ in before we have to leave, instead of monopolizing your time.”

That _is_ the truth, although you must admit you did omit the fact that seeing your brother in a noticeably female body, hearing him talk in a noticeably female voice, may be one of the worst- only through sheer discomfort- things you’ve ever experienced. Instead, you move to introduce yourself to Dirk, who you haven’t gotten to meet in meatspace before for longer than thirty seconds. You have almost no reference on his appearance as a human guy, so speaking to him shouldn’t bother you nearly as much.

“Hello,” you say, for lack of anything better. “I don’t believe I’ve had the chance to introduce myself yet. I’m Rose Lalonde, or if we’re being truly pedantic, Rozarria, patron goddess of fortune and fate.”

You extend your hand to shake, and he does. “Dirk Strider. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you without threat of imminent death.”

His face is disturbingly blank, no hint of emotion to be seen, his voice frighteningly deadpan. It’s not much of a stretch to see his alt-self as Dave’s bro.

“You’re not big on emotions, are you?” you ask. Better to break down the walls sooner than later. “One to hide behind a stone cold ironic facade, rather than bare yourself to the world?”

“Yeah,” he says, a hint of resignation in his voice. (Hmmm.) “I-I have trouble with emotions- er, expressing them. Like, with Dave and Roxy, I can just be, because they get it, but I-I’ve never met you before, y’know?”

He’s so stressed it’s palpable, eyes locked on the ground, hand behind his neck. Interesting. When you imagined Dirk Strider, you thought ‘cool, ironic perfection straight to the core,’ not ‘horrible social anxiety badly masked by a facade of nonchalance and indifference.’

And because you’re _you,_ you’ve got plenty of ideas on how to respond, none feasible. If you nodded and murmured your assent, he’d end up rambling himself into a shallow grave. If you mocked him like you do Dave, there’s a good chance he’d start crying. If you answered kindly, about how you understand, Dave’d be on your ass about it, because he knows you don’t exactly mean it.

So both of you stand there, silent, not making eye contact. The tension is so thick in the air that you could cut it with a sword.

Then, Roxy, thank the horrorterrors for her, bounds up to him. “dirk-a-dirk, you better show me your shrine-thingy. i bet it’s totally sweet!”

“Pretty lackadaisical, if I’m being honest,” he says. “Some purple prose etched into a cave wall and half-a-dozen partially rotten candles.”

“man,” Dave says. “you got candles? I got an itty-bitty little totem-thingy, covered in, like, twelve-year-old-rose sorta-almost-poetry- no, offense, rose- and a fuckin’ rock circle.”

“aww, i didn’t get any shitty poems,” Roxy fake-pouts. “i mean, i did get the whole ‘hail the princess rokshiri’ thing, but still.”

“You did get a gazebo- well, the bottom three-quarters of a gazebo, though,” you say. “Mine was a tall totem on an intricately-decorated platform.”

“Bottom three-quarters?” Dirk asks. “How did that work, structurally?”

“it looked like somebody took a crane n’ tried to steal the roof but took some chunks a’ the top a’ the columns, too,” Roxy says.

“where’d the roof go?” Dave asks.

The cortex of your brain taken over by your aspect has started sending you signals again, telling you that it’s time to get a move on. You interrupt before Roxy can answer.

“I don’t think we have the time to talk about missing elements of architecture,” you say. “The most fortuitous path forward, at least, that I can discern, involves us moving forward from here pretty soon. Where to, I don’t know.”

“’kay, that’s great,” Dave says, “but i wanna know where the roof went. a whole-ass roof doesn’t just fuckin’ migrate.”

You follow your aspect, and it leads you to a path on the opposite side of the clearing.

“As far as I’m aware, this is the way forward,” you say, waiting for your family to catch up with you. You mind is raring to go, setting off all the alarms, trying to get you to move.

“This is the path Dave came from,” Dirk says. “Are you sure it’s our best option?”

“I’m not only a Seer, but a Seer of Light,” you say. “That makes me the singular authority on where we need to go and what we need to do.”

“yeah, di-stri,” Roxy says. “she led me to you two, after all.”

“Okay,” Dirk concedes.

You start down the path, and the two of them follow you, accompanied by Dave a minute later.

“i still wanna know where the roof went,” he says.

“It was gone, Dave,” you snap. “Absent, not present, missing. Gone. My best guess is that it was damaged by something magical, and a particularly heavy storm broke it apart and scattered the pieces.”

Admittedly, that was not the nicest thing you could’ve said. You’re more than a bit on edge right now, and Dave’s endless chatter about the roof of Roxy’s shrine- what an inconsequential thing!- was getting on your nerves.

“It’s possible that it didn’t even have a roof in the first place,” Dirk says. “If that was the case, then the damage to the top of the columns could’ve been simple wear and tear.”

You swear to god, these idiots are going to be the death of you. Your mind’s settled now that you’re on the right path, yes, but that doesn’t mean the surge of adrenaline from earlier is gone. While, usually, it would have been a gentle push, a suggestion instead of a mandate, it was instead a forceful shove in the right direction, and you’re still reeling.

“you okay, rosie?” Roxy asks.

“I was a bit- er- pushy, just there,” you admit. “The magic that pervades this domain is fifty, maybe a hundred times greater in volume than it was in the Medium, which directly translates to the input I receive being fifty, maybe a hundred times greater in force. It- it’s somewhat difficult to remain calm and collected.”

“yeah,” Dave says. “i can’t usually hear the ticking of time unless i’m trying really fuckin’ hard, but now it’s like, everywhere, ‘n unless i’m hells of focused on something else, it’s there.”

“Damn it, Dave,” Dirk says. “It hadn’t crossed my mind before- it had no reason to- but now that you’ve got me thinking about it, I can hear all of your heartbeats.”

“man, this’s hella weird,” Roxy says. “i mean, void doesn’t really make noise, other than this super gentle woosh noise when i pull something into existence, but i can sorta feel it, now that i’m thinking ‘bout it. it’s like, this hug, of all the things existing around me.”

“what? dude, that’s not cool,” Dave says. “you get, like, a calm woosh noise, or the sound of a heartbeat, n’ i’m stuck with this monotone tick-tock-tick-tock, that like, never changes.”

“wooooosh,” Roxy says.

“Hang on,” Dirk blurts. You know he feels something, because your aspect’s pinging all of the ‘important event, don’t fuck this up’ centers in your brain. “There’s- there are people up ahead. Two of them.”

//points of view:

{Deakkani}

{Demeonya}

{Rozarria}

{Rokshiri}

{Haxillia}

{Jasprose}

//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, i know, only one panel. the fact that this chapter's about 500 words longer than most of the others should make up for it.


	9. family reunion, pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk is, meanwhile, still standing away from you like you’ve got anthrax. “Roxy,” he interrupts. “I get that you think he’s the cutest thing since cats wearing bread crusts, but you need to remember what he’s like. He’s malevolent, wantonly destructive, and most importantly, annoying as shit.”

====>Haxillia: Gloat.

You’re not exactly in a position to gloat, right about now.

Jasprose was itching to find the original Rose and rub her newfound corporeality in her alpha self’s face, and you will admit that you were a little excited about harassing Dirk. _Were_ being the most important part of that phase.

Sure, you know exactly where and how the paths between all six of your shrines intersect (thank you, Mind powers), but motor skills, gross and fine, are still an issue. You’re lucky that it was Jasprose who watched you perform two inelegant faceplants into the ground in a row, not anyone who’d have cared beyond “Fuck, I guess I gotta carry you.”

And carry your clumsy, physically-incapable-of-not-falling ass she did. The two of you are taking a break at Dave’s (should you be saying Demeonya instead? Who knows?) shrine, simply because you’re; a) difficult to carry, and b) pretty sure you’d like to hold off on Dirk (who’s rapidly approaching your current location) finding out about your physical incompetence.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Dirk, followed immediately by Rose, Roxy, and Dave, bursts into the clearing that holds Dave’s shrine.

You don the most malevolent smile you can manage in your current state. “Hello, Dirk. I didn’t think we’d run into each other again, but here we are.”

“No,” he says, completely ignoring Rose’s half-voiced question. “No, nope, I think the fuck not.”

“hal!” Roxy gasps. “look at you!”

“Hey, Roxy,” you say. You may or may not be avoiding words with the letter ‘s’ in them.

“you’re adorable!” she gasps, smushing your cheeks in her palms. “like a little baby dirk!!”

You take offense to that. You take a _lot_ of offense to that. Your discontent shows on your face, apparently, because she immediately tries to correct herself.

“not like _dirk_ dirk,” she says. “like dirk’s little baby bro! y’all are different, but i can totes tell you’re related! b-t-w, you’ve got the cutest little pouty face _ever._ ”

Okay, you’ll allow it. “Thanks, Roxy,” you say. She gasps.

“you gotta _lisp_ ,” she says. “o-my-g, that’s ab-so-lute-ly _adorable._ dirk-a-dirk-“

Dirk is, meanwhile, still standing away from you like you’ve got anthrax. “Roxy,” he interrupts. “I get that you think he’s the cutest thing since cats wearing bread crusts, but you need to remember what he’s like. He’s malevolent, wantonly destructive, and most importantly, annoying as shit.”

“I don’t know about that,” you say. “Maybe I was just being an annoying, rebellious little shit because I was stuck inside a pair of sunglasses, being treated like I wasn’t even a legitimate entity, much less a person. You ever think about that?”

“What about ARquiussprite?” he asks, snarking back at you.

“We don’t talk about ARquiussprite,” you say. “I wasn’t my own person, I was half sweaty-buff-horse-pervert.”

Instead of replying with an ice-cold-comeback of his own, he snickers.

“Can’t you be serious for one goddamn second, or do we need to send you back to the kids’ table?” you ask.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “It’s just- I can’t take you seriously with that fucking lisp, man. You sound like Calum Hood.”

“I don’t sound like Calum Hood,” you say, knowing that yeah, you sorta do sound like a late-2010s boy-band star with a speech impediment. “Take that back.”

“Take that back, he says,” Dirk says. “I don’t even know who Calum Hood is, other than someone told me he had some sort of speech impediment, which means you don’t either. I’d look for a comeback that you didn’t get from a little kid.”

“I’m a Mind player, shitlord, which means I know pretty much everything,” you say. “Calum Hood was a teenage pop star from the mid-late 2010s with a mild lisp. I don’t sound like part of a boy-band, do I?”

“No,” he says. “There’s no way- God, no. You can’t- I thought we were done with the annoying-as-hell know-it-all shit. No more, please.”

“Are you really going to do that?” you ask. You’ve got the upper hand now, and you both know it. “Silence me? Oh wait, you can’t anymore.”

He grabs you by the front of your robes. “I can still fucking shut you up, but it’s gonna hurt.”

“You won’t,” you say. He tightens his grip. “Besides Rose’s intuition, I’m your only ticket out of this forest, into civilization. You don’t want to be lost forever, do you?”

Dirk holds you like that, for a second, then drops you on the ground next to the rock you were sitting on. You slump against it, incapable of making your noodle-limbs do anything else. He steps back and just sorta looks at you.

“Aren’t you gonna get up? Come after me?” he asks. “C’mon, you can’t give up like that on a fight _you_ started.”

“Oh, I’d love to,” you say. “But some of us aren't blessed with adequate gross motor skills for normal, corporeal tasks. Imagine that!”

“You can’t get up,” he says.

“Lovely pronunciation, but you do make an awfully ugly parrot,” you say.

The tables have turned, and you know it. But before he can do anything, Rose interrupts.

“I don’t mean to be obtuse,” she says. “But why, exactly, is our one Mind player- our only reliable way out of this mess- slumped on the ground like a discarded sock?”

“No reliable motor skills on my end, no desire to help on his end,” you say.

“He was being intentionally obtrusive,” Dirk says.

“so you just left him there?” Dave asks. “ice cold, dude.”

Roxy and Jasprose break from their animated discussion once they see everyone standing around you while you’re half-slumped on the ground. Roxy scoops you up, bridal style. “where to, oh great wise one?”

You reach into your brain, look at your mental map.

“There’s a main road about half a mile due North,” you say, pointing. “The path from here to there is mostly overgrown, but there are markers. I’ll tell you if you’re getting off track.”

“off we go,” Dave says, as Rose and Roxy almost immediately take off in the direction you’d pointed them. “into the fuckin’ woods, ‘cause the yellow dude says so.”

//points of view:

{Deakkani}

{Demeonya}

{Rozarria}

{Rokshiri}

{Haxillia}

{Jasprose}

//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woop woop penultimate chapter!!
> 
> the final installation'll take a bit longer to get up and posted, though. it's going to be about 2x the length of the others, and, as of friday, i've been conscripted into a certain kind of unique damnation known to the uninitiated as a 'family road trip'. sorry about the wait!!


	10. good enough for you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “damn. you built a whole-ass robot copy of your mind?”  
> “Yeah.”  
> “and then he fucked up your personal shit so you tried to kill him?”  
> “Pretty much.”
> 
> also known as 'where i stick all the worldbuilding that didn't fit in the previous nine chapters'

====> Demeonya: Trust the yellow dude.

You absolutely do not trust the yellow dude.

You know almost nothing about him, and what you do know gives him a pretty bad rap. Item 1: Rose trusts him, tentatively, but Dirk doesn’t. Item 2: He talks like a villain from a bad spin-off of James Bond, lisp and all. Item 3: His eyes are weird. Normally, you wouldn’t judge based on appearance, but the fucker doesn’t have pupils and you can’t tell if he’s looking at you or not.

You elbow Dirk, get him to fall back from the group a little, where the creepy yellow dude can’t hear you.

“bro, what’s with the freaky dandelion guy? dude looks like a rip-off of a spin-off of a shitty bond villain.”

He sighs like someone who’s just resigned themselves to doing homework all night. “That’s Hal. In the game, he was the AR part of ARquius, but he started as a splinter of me. Long story short, idiot thirteen-year-old me decided building a sentient artificial intelligence to answer Trollian messages when I was busy was a good idea, and now we’re here. He’s a snarky, self-important, know-it-all douchebag, but he’s ultimately useful. As much as he hates me, and for a good reason, he knows he’s not getting anywhere without us, and we aren’t getting anywhere without him. He won’t try to sabotage us unless he thinks he can get away with it.”

“why’s he hate you? ‘cause you created him?”

“I gave him access to my Trollian account, only because his first purpose was an auto-responder. After he’d burned through all the content the Internet had to offer, he was bored, and he decided to message people for entertainment. No big deal, right? Well, since I built his personality as a mirror of mine, and he was, quite literally, a splinter of me, he decided that we were the same person, and he messaged my friends- and my crush- as me, using my account.

“But because he’d splintered enough from me to have his own identity, he didn’t act exactly like I would, and he damaged some of my relationships pretty badly. I found out about his meddling shortly before we entered the game, and I flipped the fuck out. I would have killed him then and there if he hadn’t managed to talk me out of it. He hasn’t forgiven me for that, or for the time I spent treating him as an expendable copy of myself because I wasn’t aware of what he was capable of.

“Then, ARquiussprite- also known as the world’s most perverted egomaniac- happened, and well, you know what that was like.”

“damn. you built a whole-ass robot copy of your mind?”

“Yeah.”

“and then he fucked up your personal shit so you tried to kill him?”

“Pretty much.”

“dude, that’s metal as hell. i just tossed one of my alt-timeline selves into my kernelsprite ‘n then i ignored him for three and a half years.”

“What about the purple pseudo-copy of Rose?”

“man, that’s jasprose. rose tossed her alt-self from the same timeline as davesprite into her kernel, even though its first prototyping was her cat, ‘n now we got freaky happy cat rose.”

“I can’t imagine she- Rose- is very fond of Jasprose, then.”

“nope. they hate each other, ‘cause they’re the same person, just distorted enough to make the other person seem freaky and wrong, just like you n’ hal. b-t-double-you, why are hal’s eyes like that? freaky and pupil-less and weird.”

“I don’t know, and if it’s something other than a weird, Hal-related eccentricity like the lisp, I don’t want to know.”

“man, okay. would he get pissy if i asked him?”

“No, he’d have a blast explaining it- and every little possibly related detail- to you, but be careful. He likes to monologue.”

You’re done gossiping with Dirk about people in the immediate vicinity, so the two of you walk faster and rejoin the group. Now’s your chance. You’re gonna ask the freaky-eyed yellow guy why his eyes are freaky.

“yo, yellow dude. hal, right?” you say. “can i ask a rude question?”

“Sure,” he says. “Won’t be anything I haven’t heard before.”

“okay, so, why are your eyes, like, like _that?”_ you ask.

“Like what?”

“uh, like weird ‘n yellow ‘n empty.” You’re floundering.

“Well, I assume the ‘empty’ part is my sclera, and the ‘yellow’ part my irises,” he says. “Is that truly weird enough to ask about?”

“dude, you don’t have irises. or pupils.”

“What?”

“here, lemme help.” You yank your polaroid out of your sylladex, check and make sure you’ve still got the little film thingies that it prints, then snap a picture of his face (and part of Roxy’s arm, but that was pretty much unavoidable ‘cause she’s still carrying him.

The polaroid prints, and once it’s developed you hand it to him. He stares at it for a minute, then turns towards Dirk.

“Is this actually what I look like?” he asks, waving the picture. Dirk nods. “Damn.”

“Is that a good ‘damn’ or a bad ‘damn’?” Dirk asks.

“That’s a ‘damn, I’m not nearly as ugly as you are, but I’m still sorta unattractive’,” he says. “By the way, Dave, I assume my eyes look the way they do because of the hemocaste I’ve been assigned by Sburb’s exit mechanics. I’m an ochre-blood, and therefore a psion. I’m not sure why they aren’t as individualized- e.g. two unique colors- but I can’t complain.”

“If you ever stop being useful, I’m going to fling you into the fucking sun,” Dirk says.

Hal laughs like the malevolent egomaniac he is. It reminds you of Troll Heath Ledger’s Joker, if Troll Heath Ledger were a 12-year-old, upper-middle-class white boy. “Jokes’ on you, mister totally-not-a-neckbeard, I’d be more useful as a corpse than you ever will be. By the way, we’re coming up on the main road.”

Dirk opens his mouth to retort, but by then, you’re all stepping out of the jungle and onto Hal’s “main road.” It’s plenty overgrown, but it is paved- not with asphalt, but with interlocking stepping stones.

“Two miles that way,” he says, pointing, “is the capital city, Laeri. It’s pretty much our best option.”

Rose and Jasprose set off almost immediately, followed by you and Roxy, who’s still carrying your dandelion egomaniac of an oracle. Dirk is last, muttering something along the lines of “if anyone needs quasi-omnipotence, it’s not that bastard.”

As you walk, you catch sight of several cottages and merchant’s stands along the highway, all long abandoned. Hmmm. You’re cool with everyone being super urban, but there’s at least gotta be a handful of rural fairy people.

“hey hal,” Roxy says. “why’s everything abandoned? where’d everyone go?”

“Well,” Hal says. “There’re two ways for me to explain this; rude, short, and seriously concerning, or long, detailed, and immensely disturbing. Take your pick.”

Roxy pauses. “imm’a go with long n’ detailed. i’d rather disturbing than concerning, ‘n we gotta long walk to burn.”

“94% of the population of the Feywilderness resided on this island alone. That’s 50 million people in about 160,000 square miles, or about 250 people per mile, which is about how crowded California was at it’s largest. Now, bearing in mind that the average sanitation was about as good as it was in America in the 1920s, vaccines were never a thing, and most people had absolutely no access to any magic, much less healing magic, how easy would it be for a highly contagious pandemic to turn that 50 million into about 12,000?

“The capital, Laeri, and the two main trade cities, Limye and Sauf, were quickly abandoned. The 12,000 that survived were mostly those who lived in the port cities of Espwa and Taen and had the disposable income to travel by sea. Commoners, urban and rural, died in droves. By the five-year anniversary of the disease’s advent, fewer than 3,000 were left alive on this continent. Now, almost 500 years afterwards, it’s just us and a handful of hillbillies up in the mountains in the North.

“On the positive side, Laeri should have plenty of resources available, both generated by exit algorithms and left by the dead. Most of the important buildings, libraries, hospitals, and temples, should’ve remained intact, preserved by magic. Additionally, there’re also some Sburb buildings- mostly labs from the Veil, but some of our homes, or components of them, may have been saved as well. There’s alchemy equipment, I’m sure of that, but I don’t know how much grist we have, if any at all.”

True to his word, that was _really_ disturbing. An awkward silence has fallen over your little group, one that you’d love to break, if you were sure how to without it being absolutely mortifying. Instead, you just walk in silence, like a sullen teenager forced on a family outing. No mom, it’s not a phase, a Viking death metalhead is truly who I am!!1!!!1!

Finally, finally, the road veers to the left to avoid a cliff, and you catch sight of the city down below.

Whoa.

“Okay, Hal, tell me what I’m looking at,” Rose says.

“The massive building in the center is the Ereai, basically the Vatican of the Feywilderness,” Hal says. “The smaller buildings around it are mostly government buildings and clergy housing. Below us, built- well, more unceremoniously shoved- into the cliff, are the Sburb buildings I mentioned earlier.”

“Sburb buildings?” Rose asks. “Elaborate on that.”

“Basically, rips of certain game-related buildings mashed together to create a sort of dormitory,” Hal says. “Eighteen ‘apartments,’ designs ripped from whichever buildings entered the game and adjusted to fit, customized for each of the arriving players, a slew of larger common areas, ripped from the meteor Dave and Rose traveled on, and a handful of basic commodities meant to help us transition into survival without alchemiters. I can see outdoor gardens, an indoor greenhouse, a well, a massive workshop- outfitted with every tool and supply under the sun,- and a forge.”

As he talks, your little group impatiently makes its way down into the valley. You are so ready for this, A/C and a decent meal and whatever’s left of your personal shit.

====> Deakkani: Find your space.

You’re hungry, and you desperately need a shower, but more than that, you really _really_ need to find your stuff, whatever’s left of your apartment. Today has been so bizarre that it’s put you on the edge of the edge, and you’re very much looking forward to familiarity and the comfort that comes with it.

You forgo alchemiter pizza with Roxy and Dave to hop on the one active transportalizer with the Heart symbol hovering over it, then head through the resulting doorway, and-

This isn’t your room.

Well, this is your room, but it’s been altered some. It’s alien in appearance and furnishing, but it brings with it the same sense of placid calmness that making it back to your actual room would.

There’s a window above your desk and birds outside. You’ve got your skateboard and your rocket board and your katana and a handful of smuppets and ~~your~~ some shitty ironic horse posters. You’ve got your drawing tablet and your desktop- with most of your files still intact. You’ve even got your pile of robot parts.

You’re home, or at least, as home as you can be. Roxy’s here with you, and so are Dave and Rose, hell, even Hal. You’ve got your stuff- most of it- including your saved files. You may be stuck in a strange, alien world, in a strange, alien body, but you’re surrounded by familiar comforts.

You’re as close to home as you can be, and y’know what? That’s good enough for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the fic itself is done, but the story's a long way from finished. i should have part two up by early august.
> 
> catch y'all on the flip side!

**Author's Note:**

> which one of those four commands starts the next chapter? i'm leaving it up to y'all to decide.
> 
> ((constructive criticism highly appreciated. come yell at me @ u/virminilux on reddit))


End file.
